Graduate 107: Moral Responsibility 01
I think it would help the progress of my philosophical training to write more about what I'm studying. Writing about the things that I'm reading forces me to engage with, analyze, and process the material in a way that I don't if I'm simply reading it. I already started a series on Heidegger's Being and Time. The following series will cover the readings in my Proseminar class on Moral Responsibility (Winter, 2008). Certainly they will vary in length and depth, depending on time availability. Also, I must make the reader aware that I will not necessarily spell everything out clearly. In many cases, I will probably write as if to someone who is already familiar with the topics or who has read the relevant material. The simple fact is that it takes much more time to rework the ideas to make them palatable to someone that does not have prior exposure to the material. However, if you would like more information on any point, just let me know and I will be happy to develop, more deeply, the ideas that I present only cursorily here. Certainly, that would be invaluable practice for me as well.
Here, then, is the first article: Fischer, John and Mark Ravizza. "Moral Responsibility: The Concept and the Challenges". Chapter one of Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
The possibility of bearing moral responsibility is one feature of persons that sets them apart from nonpersons. If your cat, or a strong gust of wind, knocks over and shatters a valuable vase in your home, you will likely be upset, angry, and frustrated. If a neighbor who doesn’t like you knocks it over intentionally, you will feel the same kind of anger and frustration, but, in addition to these, you will also likely experience other feelings--blame, resentment, moral indignation--that you would not direct at either the cat or the wind. The cat, the wind, and the neighbor are all equally causally responsible, but only in the case of the neighbor would we generally impute moral responsibility. The kinds of reactions associated with moral judgment are not just negative, either. Gratitude, respect, and praise as much as resentment and blame describe ways in which we evaluatively respond to certain actions by persons.
Fischer and Ravizza employ a Strawsonian account of moral responsibility in this paper. In the next entry in this series, we will treat Peter Strawson's landmark paper, "Freedom and Resentment". For now, it will be enough to highlight a few points.
"Strawson begins his argument by noting "the very great importance that we attach to the attitudes and intentions towards us of other human beings, and the great extent to which our personal feelings and reactions depend upon, or involve, our beliefs about these attitudes and intentions." When we regard someone as a responsible agent, we react to the person with a unique set of feelings and attitudes - for example, gratitude, indignation, resentment, love, respect, and forgiveness." (Fischer/Ravizza, 5)
It is well in line with our natural intuitions that intentions should be given an important place in our formulated understanding of moral responsibility. If your daughter knocks over an expensive vase intentionally, the natural response includes feelings of indignation and (moral) blame. On the other hand, if she knocks it over accidentally, your reaction will likely more closely resemble that in the cat- or wind-cases. This distinction is closely mirrored in the distinction between punishment and conditioning. The former includes an element of moral condemnation that is absent in the latter. Behavior-modification may be involved in both cases, but there is something more involved in punishment. Yet another way of describing this difference is that interactions with persons involve active engagement whereas our view of nonpersons is more objective. This is not to say that every one of a person's actions involves some moral component; it may well be that some (or many or even most) actions committed by persons are morally neutral. Nevertheless, it remains the case that what sets persons apart from nonpersons is the possibility of bearing moral responsibility and the ability to commit actions that may be the legitimate object of moral evaluation or judgment. But even this general formulation can be taken a number of different ways.
"We shall put the Strawsonian view of moral responsibility as follows. Someone is morally responsible insofar as he is an appropriate candidate for the reactive attitudes. More specifically, someone is a morally responsible agent insofar as he is an appropriate candidate for at least some of the reactive attitudes on the basis of at least some of his behavior (or perhaps his character). And someone is morally responsible for a particular bit of behavior (or perhaps a trait of character) to the extent that he is an appropriate candidate for at least some of the reactive attitudes on the basis of that behavior (or trait of character). (We are here construing "behavior" broadly to include both actions and omissions.)" (Fischer/Ravizza, 6-7)
On Strawson's view, moral responsibility is understood in terms of the reactive attitudes (e.g. gratitude, indignation, resentment, love, respect, and forgiveness) and that is about it. So for Fischer and Ravizza, these attitudes do not just serve as evidence that moral agents are involved; they also constitute the substance of what it means to be morally responsible. To say that your neighbor is morally responsible for breaking the vase is just to say that it is appropriate to direct blame at your neighbor and feel resentment towards your neighbor. Now this may be an oversimplification; you will have to wait until the next installment on "Freedom and Resentment" to see for sure. But this way of speaking about Strawson's view helps to highlight one of the potential problems with it. He says, "Someone is morally responsible insofar as he is an appropriate candidate for the reactive attitudes." But, one might ask, what is it that makes him an appropriate candidate for the reactive attitudes? What is it about intentionally (and maliciously) breaking someone else's expensive vase that makes it a morally reprehensible and blameworthy action? What is it about donating time or money to some worthy cause that is morally praiseworthy and laudable? It seems that the answer cannot simply be that they are appropriate candidates of certain reactive attitudes (e.g. blame, praise) on pain of circularity.
"An alternative view about the nature of moral responsibiility holds that someone is a morally responsible agent insofar as it is appropriate to apply moral judgments to at least some of his behavior (or perhaps aspects of his character). That is, a morally responsible agent is construed as an appropriate candidate for the possession of moral properties (or for being the target of ascriptions of moral predicates)." (Fischer/Ravizza, 8-9. Footnote 12)
Fischer and Ravizza call this the "ledger view".
"Ledger views construe our ascriptions of responsibility as first and foremost judgments concerning an agent's moral value. Of course, there can be different sorts of judgments about moral value. Gary Watson describes some plausible judgments of this sort (in the process of describing a ledger-type picture of moral responsibility): "Consider the following common view of blame and praise: To blame someone morally for something is to attribute it to a moral fault, or 'shortcoming,' or defect of character, or vice, and similarly for praise. Responsibility could be constructed in terms of the propriety conditions of such judgments: that is, judgments to the effect that an action or attitude manifests a virtue or vice." / Ledger views construe our ascriptions of responsibility as primarily judgments (concerning an agent's moral value); the reactive attitudes and the associated practices of praising and blaming take on a secondary role, following from these primary assessments of moral worth like practical consequences. For the Strawsonian, this view of responsibility as involving primarily a theoretical judgment inappropriately diminishes the role the reactive attitudes play in the definition of moral responsibility." (Fischer/Ravizza, 9-10. Footnote 12)
We shall see how things wind up at the end of term, but at this point, my inclinations are to defend the ledger view against the Strawsonian. What would be necessary to do this is an account of moral value (moral attributes, moral predicates, etc.)--that basis upon which moral judgments are made.
--
Fischer and Ravizza are trying to develop, systematically, the conditions of application of the concept of moral responsibility. They are pursuing a "wide reflective equilibrium"--a model that takes into account various particular cases along with more general principles, attempting to resolve tensions and developing the most inclusive theory.
They also accept two constraints on the scope of application (traced back to Aristotle)--the epistemic condition and the control condition. "The first condition... corresponds to the excuse of ignorance. It captures the intuition that an agent is responsible only if he both knows the particular facts surrounding his action, and acts with the proper sort of belief and intentions. / The second condition of moral responsibility corresponds to the excuse of force. ... It specifies that the agent must not behave as he does as the result of undue force; that is, he must do what he does freely." (Fischer/Ravizza, 13) So if your neighbor inadvertantly knocks over the vase while entering the room--because he does not know that the vase is behind the door and opens it too widely--you will not consider him to be morally responsible on account of his ignorance of certain significant facts. If he knocks the vase over intentionally while under hypnosis or other form of mind-control (perhaps by scientists who have implanted a transmitter in his brain and are controlling his actions remotely) you will also not consider him to be morally responsible for the act since his actions were not under his control.
Now Fischer and Ravizza focus on the control condition (hence the title of their book, Responsibility and Control) but I would still like to raise one point about the epistemic condition. It is true that, where a person is ignorant of certain key facts, we may be disinclined to hold them morally responsible for their action (be it good or bad--a person may inadvertantly do good). However, I think we should also consider the possibility of cases of culpable ignorance in which a person would still be held responsible for actions taken in ignorance because they ought to have known better or because they ought to have taken some fact into consideration that they did not.
--
One of the principle threats to a theory of moral responsibility built around persons (agents) is the doctrine (theory) of causal determinism. But Fischer and Ravizza take an interesting stand with respect to this theory: "Our contention is that even if causal determinism were true, there is a strong impetus to think that human beings should still be properly considered persons, morally responsible, and at least sometimes in control of their behavior. That is, even if we discovered that causal determinism is true, there is a strong tendency to think that this sort of discovery should not make us abandon our view of ourselves as persons and morally responsible agents." (Fiscer/Ravizza, 15) For them, the determination that causal determinism is true is different from the discovery that a particular individual is being controlled by aliens from outer space. In the latter case, they would be disinclined to hold that person morally responsible for her actions; not so in the former case.
They go on to say, "Our sense of ourselves and other human beings as persons and subject to the reactive attitudes is a very basic and important feature of our lives. Without personhood and moral responsibility our lives would be radically different, and (for most) very unattractive. Why should a new scientific discovery of the sort envisaged - let us say a discovery about the precise form of the natural laws - require us to stop thinking of ourselves and certain others as persons, as subject to love, hatred, respect, friendship, indignation, and moral assessment? Why should this sort of scientific discovery require us to give up the rich texture of our relationships with family and friends and begin to take up the detached, objective perspective on life?" (Fischer/Ravizza, 16)
But these strike me as very odd questions, indeed. Why should the confirmation of the doctrine of causal determinism alter our view of human beings? How could it not? And it is a curious claim that "without personhood and moral responsibility our lives would be... (for most) very unattractive." One could, in fact, envision ways in which life might be improved. Even if we agreed that the loss of love, respect, and friendship was bad, the loss, also, of hatred and indignation might be counted as a very good consequence. Certainly the potential unattractiveness of life is taken by some as an intuitive, prima facie reason to reject causal determinism--but if it were, in fact, the case that the doctrine of causal determinismm is true, then it would be not unreasonable to conclude that a life that accords with the structure of reality would be, overall, better than a life that is not. And some might well argue that a more Stoic approach to life would be better for people. It seems odd to claim that we should continue to feel bound to moral responsibility and moral norms in a universe where no such things exist.
Of course, that last statement may presuppose a view of moral responsibility (namely, a ledger view) that Fischer and Ravizza are rejecting. It remains a claim in need of clarification that moral responsibility can be preserved in a universe where actions and events are causally determined.
--
The last section of this chapter focuses on "the challenges from causal determinism". Fischer and Ravizza lay out two forms of the indirect challenge and one form of the direct challenge to moral responsibility posed by causal determinism. These challenges cut right to the heart of the natural intuitions we have about control and moral responsibility and thus must be dealt with.
"The Indirect Challenges contend that causal determinism rules out control and thus also moral responsibility. The Direct Challenges do not proceed via the intermediary notion of control; they ague that causal determinism rules out moral responsibility (but not in virtue of ruling out control)." (Fischer/Ravizza, 17)
The first indirect challenge is built around the modal Principle of the Transfer of Powerlessness, according to which (roughly) "if a person is powerless over one thing, and powerless over that thing's leading to another, then the person is powerless over the second thing." (Fischer/Ravizza, 18) It also involves the Principle of the Fixity of the Past--the idea that the past cannot be altered--and the Principle of the Fixity of the Laws (of Nature). According to the challenge, if causal determinism is true then it follows from the fact that we cannot change the past--because of the Fixity of the Past and the Transfer Principle and the Fixity of the Laws--that we cannot control our present actions.
--
The following is for my benefit. Do not expect to understand the notation unless you have already been exposed to the articles material.
(1) N[S, T2] (b at T1) from the Principle of the Fixity of the Past.
(2) N[S, T2] (If b at T1, then S does A at T3) from (1) and the Principle of the Fixity of the Laws.
(3) N[S, T2] (S does A at T3) from (1), (2), and the Transfer Principle, where T3 is later than or contemporaneous with T2.
--
The second indirect challenge comes to the same basic conclusion about control, but without relying on the Transfer Principle. According to the second challenge, if causal determinism is true, then given that certain states of affairs obtain at times T1 and T3, holding the past and the laws of nature fixed, it is impossible for the subject, at T2, to bring about a different state of affairs at T3.
One interesting point: Fischer and Ravizza say, "The argument can also be presented employing the alternative ("possible-worlds") account of causal determinism (sketched earlier). Start, again, with the assumptionn that causal determinism obtains. And imagine, again, that S does A at T3. Recall that, on the relevant account of causal determinism, determinism obtains at a possible world w just in case any world that shares a time slice with w and has the same natural laws as w is identical with w." (Fischer/Ravizza, 23) It occurs to me (though it probably does not amount to a substantial objection) that a given state of the world (or time slice) might be obtainable by multiple past routes. If this is so, then more must be said and is necessary to ensure that causal determinism obtains, even holding the time slice and the laws of nature fixed. Perhaps another way of thinking about the point is to ask, relating to Van Inwagen's analogy (Fischer/Ravizza, 23), whether, for the causal determinist, there are any unbarred alternative routes.
The direct challenge bypasses considerations about human control over action. It also employs a kind of transfer principle, but one that relates directly to moral responsibility and not to control. According to this principle, "if no one is morally responsible for p, and no one is morally responsible for the fact that if p obtains, then q obtains, it follows that no one is morally responsible for q. Call this the Principle of the Transfer of Nonresponsibility." (Fischer/Ravizza, 24) According to this challenge, if causal determinism is true, than if there is a paste state of affairs, for which no agent is morally responsible (as would be the case before human beings existed) then, holding the past and natural laws fixed, it cannot be the case that agents in the present or future are morally responsible for their actions.
--
Fischer and Ravizza intend, in the later chapters of their book, to offer answers to these various challenges. Interestingly, they conclude that "our account of moral responsibility is consistent not only with the truth of causal determinism, but with its falsity as well; this renders moral responsibility optimally insulated from scientific discoveries about the form and implications of the laws of nature." (Fischer/Ravizza, 26) Again, without having read their entire argument, the idea of such an account strikes me as highly implausible. Possibly, one might try to define moral responsibility in a way that does not require control, but Fischer and Ravizza seem to want to preserve the control-aspect. So their theory must show how an individual may be appropriately in control of his or her action in a deterministic universe--or in control in a way that is indifferent to whether the course of the universe is causally determined or not.
--
After wading through much philosophy, it is helpful to be reminded that God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
Here, then, is the first article: Fischer, John and Mark Ravizza. "Moral Responsibility: The Concept and the Challenges". Chapter one of Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
The possibility of bearing moral responsibility is one feature of persons that sets them apart from nonpersons. If your cat, or a strong gust of wind, knocks over and shatters a valuable vase in your home, you will likely be upset, angry, and frustrated. If a neighbor who doesn’t like you knocks it over intentionally, you will feel the same kind of anger and frustration, but, in addition to these, you will also likely experience other feelings--blame, resentment, moral indignation--that you would not direct at either the cat or the wind. The cat, the wind, and the neighbor are all equally causally responsible, but only in the case of the neighbor would we generally impute moral responsibility. The kinds of reactions associated with moral judgment are not just negative, either. Gratitude, respect, and praise as much as resentment and blame describe ways in which we evaluatively respond to certain actions by persons.
Fischer and Ravizza employ a Strawsonian account of moral responsibility in this paper. In the next entry in this series, we will treat Peter Strawson's landmark paper, "Freedom and Resentment". For now, it will be enough to highlight a few points.
"Strawson begins his argument by noting "the very great importance that we attach to the attitudes and intentions towards us of other human beings, and the great extent to which our personal feelings and reactions depend upon, or involve, our beliefs about these attitudes and intentions." When we regard someone as a responsible agent, we react to the person with a unique set of feelings and attitudes - for example, gratitude, indignation, resentment, love, respect, and forgiveness." (Fischer/Ravizza, 5)
It is well in line with our natural intuitions that intentions should be given an important place in our formulated understanding of moral responsibility. If your daughter knocks over an expensive vase intentionally, the natural response includes feelings of indignation and (moral) blame. On the other hand, if she knocks it over accidentally, your reaction will likely more closely resemble that in the cat- or wind-cases. This distinction is closely mirrored in the distinction between punishment and conditioning. The former includes an element of moral condemnation that is absent in the latter. Behavior-modification may be involved in both cases, but there is something more involved in punishment. Yet another way of describing this difference is that interactions with persons involve active engagement whereas our view of nonpersons is more objective. This is not to say that every one of a person's actions involves some moral component; it may well be that some (or many or even most) actions committed by persons are morally neutral. Nevertheless, it remains the case that what sets persons apart from nonpersons is the possibility of bearing moral responsibility and the ability to commit actions that may be the legitimate object of moral evaluation or judgment. But even this general formulation can be taken a number of different ways.
"We shall put the Strawsonian view of moral responsibility as follows. Someone is morally responsible insofar as he is an appropriate candidate for the reactive attitudes. More specifically, someone is a morally responsible agent insofar as he is an appropriate candidate for at least some of the reactive attitudes on the basis of at least some of his behavior (or perhaps his character). And someone is morally responsible for a particular bit of behavior (or perhaps a trait of character) to the extent that he is an appropriate candidate for at least some of the reactive attitudes on the basis of that behavior (or trait of character). (We are here construing "behavior" broadly to include both actions and omissions.)" (Fischer/Ravizza, 6-7)
On Strawson's view, moral responsibility is understood in terms of the reactive attitudes (e.g. gratitude, indignation, resentment, love, respect, and forgiveness) and that is about it. So for Fischer and Ravizza, these attitudes do not just serve as evidence that moral agents are involved; they also constitute the substance of what it means to be morally responsible. To say that your neighbor is morally responsible for breaking the vase is just to say that it is appropriate to direct blame at your neighbor and feel resentment towards your neighbor. Now this may be an oversimplification; you will have to wait until the next installment on "Freedom and Resentment" to see for sure. But this way of speaking about Strawson's view helps to highlight one of the potential problems with it. He says, "Someone is morally responsible insofar as he is an appropriate candidate for the reactive attitudes." But, one might ask, what is it that makes him an appropriate candidate for the reactive attitudes? What is it about intentionally (and maliciously) breaking someone else's expensive vase that makes it a morally reprehensible and blameworthy action? What is it about donating time or money to some worthy cause that is morally praiseworthy and laudable? It seems that the answer cannot simply be that they are appropriate candidates of certain reactive attitudes (e.g. blame, praise) on pain of circularity.
"An alternative view about the nature of moral responsibiility holds that someone is a morally responsible agent insofar as it is appropriate to apply moral judgments to at least some of his behavior (or perhaps aspects of his character). That is, a morally responsible agent is construed as an appropriate candidate for the possession of moral properties (or for being the target of ascriptions of moral predicates)." (Fischer/Ravizza, 8-9. Footnote 12)
Fischer and Ravizza call this the "ledger view".
"Ledger views construe our ascriptions of responsibility as first and foremost judgments concerning an agent's moral value. Of course, there can be different sorts of judgments about moral value. Gary Watson describes some plausible judgments of this sort (in the process of describing a ledger-type picture of moral responsibility): "Consider the following common view of blame and praise: To blame someone morally for something is to attribute it to a moral fault, or 'shortcoming,' or defect of character, or vice, and similarly for praise. Responsibility could be constructed in terms of the propriety conditions of such judgments: that is, judgments to the effect that an action or attitude manifests a virtue or vice." / Ledger views construe our ascriptions of responsibility as primarily judgments (concerning an agent's moral value); the reactive attitudes and the associated practices of praising and blaming take on a secondary role, following from these primary assessments of moral worth like practical consequences. For the Strawsonian, this view of responsibility as involving primarily a theoretical judgment inappropriately diminishes the role the reactive attitudes play in the definition of moral responsibility." (Fischer/Ravizza, 9-10. Footnote 12)
We shall see how things wind up at the end of term, but at this point, my inclinations are to defend the ledger view against the Strawsonian. What would be necessary to do this is an account of moral value (moral attributes, moral predicates, etc.)--that basis upon which moral judgments are made.
--
Fischer and Ravizza are trying to develop, systematically, the conditions of application of the concept of moral responsibility. They are pursuing a "wide reflective equilibrium"--a model that takes into account various particular cases along with more general principles, attempting to resolve tensions and developing the most inclusive theory.
They also accept two constraints on the scope of application (traced back to Aristotle)--the epistemic condition and the control condition. "The first condition... corresponds to the excuse of ignorance. It captures the intuition that an agent is responsible only if he both knows the particular facts surrounding his action, and acts with the proper sort of belief and intentions. / The second condition of moral responsibility corresponds to the excuse of force. ... It specifies that the agent must not behave as he does as the result of undue force; that is, he must do what he does freely." (Fischer/Ravizza, 13) So if your neighbor inadvertantly knocks over the vase while entering the room--because he does not know that the vase is behind the door and opens it too widely--you will not consider him to be morally responsible on account of his ignorance of certain significant facts. If he knocks the vase over intentionally while under hypnosis or other form of mind-control (perhaps by scientists who have implanted a transmitter in his brain and are controlling his actions remotely) you will also not consider him to be morally responsible for the act since his actions were not under his control.
Now Fischer and Ravizza focus on the control condition (hence the title of their book, Responsibility and Control) but I would still like to raise one point about the epistemic condition. It is true that, where a person is ignorant of certain key facts, we may be disinclined to hold them morally responsible for their action (be it good or bad--a person may inadvertantly do good). However, I think we should also consider the possibility of cases of culpable ignorance in which a person would still be held responsible for actions taken in ignorance because they ought to have known better or because they ought to have taken some fact into consideration that they did not.
--
One of the principle threats to a theory of moral responsibility built around persons (agents) is the doctrine (theory) of causal determinism. But Fischer and Ravizza take an interesting stand with respect to this theory: "Our contention is that even if causal determinism were true, there is a strong impetus to think that human beings should still be properly considered persons, morally responsible, and at least sometimes in control of their behavior. That is, even if we discovered that causal determinism is true, there is a strong tendency to think that this sort of discovery should not make us abandon our view of ourselves as persons and morally responsible agents." (Fiscer/Ravizza, 15) For them, the determination that causal determinism is true is different from the discovery that a particular individual is being controlled by aliens from outer space. In the latter case, they would be disinclined to hold that person morally responsible for her actions; not so in the former case.
They go on to say, "Our sense of ourselves and other human beings as persons and subject to the reactive attitudes is a very basic and important feature of our lives. Without personhood and moral responsibility our lives would be radically different, and (for most) very unattractive. Why should a new scientific discovery of the sort envisaged - let us say a discovery about the precise form of the natural laws - require us to stop thinking of ourselves and certain others as persons, as subject to love, hatred, respect, friendship, indignation, and moral assessment? Why should this sort of scientific discovery require us to give up the rich texture of our relationships with family and friends and begin to take up the detached, objective perspective on life?" (Fischer/Ravizza, 16)
But these strike me as very odd questions, indeed. Why should the confirmation of the doctrine of causal determinism alter our view of human beings? How could it not? And it is a curious claim that "without personhood and moral responsibility our lives would be... (for most) very unattractive." One could, in fact, envision ways in which life might be improved. Even if we agreed that the loss of love, respect, and friendship was bad, the loss, also, of hatred and indignation might be counted as a very good consequence. Certainly the potential unattractiveness of life is taken by some as an intuitive, prima facie reason to reject causal determinism--but if it were, in fact, the case that the doctrine of causal determinismm is true, then it would be not unreasonable to conclude that a life that accords with the structure of reality would be, overall, better than a life that is not. And some might well argue that a more Stoic approach to life would be better for people. It seems odd to claim that we should continue to feel bound to moral responsibility and moral norms in a universe where no such things exist.
Of course, that last statement may presuppose a view of moral responsibility (namely, a ledger view) that Fischer and Ravizza are rejecting. It remains a claim in need of clarification that moral responsibility can be preserved in a universe where actions and events are causally determined.
--
The last section of this chapter focuses on "the challenges from causal determinism". Fischer and Ravizza lay out two forms of the indirect challenge and one form of the direct challenge to moral responsibility posed by causal determinism. These challenges cut right to the heart of the natural intuitions we have about control and moral responsibility and thus must be dealt with.
"The Indirect Challenges contend that causal determinism rules out control and thus also moral responsibility. The Direct Challenges do not proceed via the intermediary notion of control; they ague that causal determinism rules out moral responsibility (but not in virtue of ruling out control)." (Fischer/Ravizza, 17)
The first indirect challenge is built around the modal Principle of the Transfer of Powerlessness, according to which (roughly) "if a person is powerless over one thing, and powerless over that thing's leading to another, then the person is powerless over the second thing." (Fischer/Ravizza, 18) It also involves the Principle of the Fixity of the Past--the idea that the past cannot be altered--and the Principle of the Fixity of the Laws (of Nature). According to the challenge, if causal determinism is true then it follows from the fact that we cannot change the past--because of the Fixity of the Past and the Transfer Principle and the Fixity of the Laws--that we cannot control our present actions.
--
The following is for my benefit. Do not expect to understand the notation unless you have already been exposed to the articles material.
(1) N[S, T2] (b at T1) from the Principle of the Fixity of the Past.
(2) N[S, T2] (If b at T1, then S does A at T3) from (1) and the Principle of the Fixity of the Laws.
(3) N[S, T2] (S does A at T3) from (1), (2), and the Transfer Principle, where T3 is later than or contemporaneous with T2.
--
The second indirect challenge comes to the same basic conclusion about control, but without relying on the Transfer Principle. According to the second challenge, if causal determinism is true, then given that certain states of affairs obtain at times T1 and T3, holding the past and the laws of nature fixed, it is impossible for the subject, at T2, to bring about a different state of affairs at T3.
One interesting point: Fischer and Ravizza say, "The argument can also be presented employing the alternative ("possible-worlds") account of causal determinism (sketched earlier). Start, again, with the assumptionn that causal determinism obtains. And imagine, again, that S does A at T3. Recall that, on the relevant account of causal determinism, determinism obtains at a possible world w just in case any world that shares a time slice with w and has the same natural laws as w is identical with w." (Fischer/Ravizza, 23) It occurs to me (though it probably does not amount to a substantial objection) that a given state of the world (or time slice) might be obtainable by multiple past routes. If this is so, then more must be said and is necessary to ensure that causal determinism obtains, even holding the time slice and the laws of nature fixed. Perhaps another way of thinking about the point is to ask, relating to Van Inwagen's analogy (Fischer/Ravizza, 23), whether, for the causal determinist, there are any unbarred alternative routes.
The direct challenge bypasses considerations about human control over action. It also employs a kind of transfer principle, but one that relates directly to moral responsibility and not to control. According to this principle, "if no one is morally responsible for p, and no one is morally responsible for the fact that if p obtains, then q obtains, it follows that no one is morally responsible for q. Call this the Principle of the Transfer of Nonresponsibility." (Fischer/Ravizza, 24) According to this challenge, if causal determinism is true, than if there is a paste state of affairs, for which no agent is morally responsible (as would be the case before human beings existed) then, holding the past and natural laws fixed, it cannot be the case that agents in the present or future are morally responsible for their actions.
--
Fischer and Ravizza intend, in the later chapters of their book, to offer answers to these various challenges. Interestingly, they conclude that "our account of moral responsibility is consistent not only with the truth of causal determinism, but with its falsity as well; this renders moral responsibility optimally insulated from scientific discoveries about the form and implications of the laws of nature." (Fischer/Ravizza, 26) Again, without having read their entire argument, the idea of such an account strikes me as highly implausible. Possibly, one might try to define moral responsibility in a way that does not require control, but Fischer and Ravizza seem to want to preserve the control-aspect. So their theory must show how an individual may be appropriately in control of his or her action in a deterministic universe--or in control in a way that is indifferent to whether the course of the universe is causally determined or not.
--
After wading through much philosophy, it is helpful to be reminded that God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
posted by Metaphysician_delta | 10:25 AM
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